State legislators respond to local business concerns

Politics becomes more popular during election years, as the sold-out crowd for the Hoffman Estates Chamber of Commerce & Industry's annual Illinois Legislative Update Luncheon Friday attests.

Businesspeople - with business questions - filled the lower level room at Hoffman Estates' Alexian Brothers Women & Children's Hospital, which hosted the event.

Topics included workers' compensation reform, rolling back the 2 percentage point increase in the state income tax rate, the perceived finality of the 2014 pension reform bill, and the relative level of difficulty in starting a new business in Illinois.

The five panelists were state Sens. Dan Kotowski and Michael Noland and state Reps. Michelle Mussman, Tom Morrison and Fred Crespo.

"Looks like I'm carrying the Republican banner today!" Morrison said as he read the name plates of his fellow panelists, all Democrats, before the event.

And as polite as the audience was to everyone, Morrison was the first to receive spontaneous applause in his criticism of the income tax increase, which was originally passed in a lame-duck session with the promise of being temporary just before he and Mussman were sworn in in 2011.

He said the number of Texas and other out-of-state license plates in the area is increasing as Illinois residents are changing their permanent residencies to lower-tax states.

"If we become less competitive, the private capital moves elsewhere," Morrison said. "We have not cut to the bone."

Mussman said that rolling back the income tax from 5 percent to 3 percent would cost the state $4 billion. Such funds are necessary to get a handle on Illinois' rising pension obligations, she said.

"I can shut down entire state agencies and still get nowhere near $4 billion," she said.

Mussman too received applause for her comments on the pension reform bill, whose fate is before the Illinois Supreme Court.

She said that while it is unconstitutional to break promises to those expecting pensions of a certain level, it should also be unconstitutional to destroy the livelihoods of everyone else in the state by keeping unsustainable promises.

Kotowski was especially passionate in his response to the same issue, saying how difficult it was for him to vote for the bill this year - knowing it would hurt the families of current and retired schoolteachers.

But with pension obligations currently occupying 20 percent of the state budget and continuing to rise, Kotowski said he felt strongly that voting for the bill was the right thing to do.

Though Crespo also defended the pension reform bill, he disagreed with his fellow Democrats in their defense of maintaining the 5 percent state income tax. He said the necessity for the state's current spending levels was not as much a given for him.

"I voted against the increase," Crespo said. "We need to talk about spending. How much do we really need?"

Noland said that when it comes to the income tax increase, the news people need to hear isn't necessarily the news they want to hear.

He believes the services that would need to be cut by rolling back the increase would be debilitating to the state.

But Noland thought the increase in the income tax could be balanced out by some appropriate relief in property taxes.

Noland's biggest disagreement with his fellow Democrats was on the pension reform bill.

He opposed it and expects the Supreme Court to reject it.

But Noland also disagreed with Morrison's assessment of the pension crisis as one created by Democrats over the past 12 years, saying Republican leaders and governors before that also contributed.

Noland said he's against breaking promises to pensioners but doesn't believe the state can cut its way out of the dilemma either.

The solution can come only with popular support behind it, he said.

"The popular will to change this is not there yet," he added.